DESIGNER

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ILLUSTRATOR

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DEVELOPER

PROJECTS FOR SPOONFLOWER

As Spoonflower, an online fabric and paper printing company, started up and grew, I also developed as a designer and a professional. While holding various titles in the company, I was also approached frequently for graphic and illustration work. There's a lot that one does in three years with a startup company, but below are some of my favorite projects.

HOLIDAY GIFTWRAP DESIGN & TUTORIAL

I was approached by the marketing team to create a design class for Spoonflower customers, as a long-term goal, we wanted to teach everyone, independently from age and skills, to learn to design using Spoonflower's website and tools. As we wanted this to be a standing signature course, I planned for a series of holiday themed courses, to cater all levels of design-knowledge, I created some illustrations with Adobe Illustrator so that students could use as a starting point, upload, change colors, add elements, etc. I created an online tutorial and also taught two classes in Spoonflower's Durham location.
For the online tutorial, I planed the course in steps, developed screenshots with notes, and created the blog post. Creating this tutorial introduced me to design thinking at a deeper level, I experimented placing myself in the customer's shoes and realizing their journey which in turn helped me develop a simple, stress-free set of instructions that students ranging from 8 to 80 years old could understand and follow.

CANDY WRAPPER DESIGN CLASS & TUTORIAL

I was challenged with coming up with a second class, I knew that Valentine's Day was coming up, and we wanted to promote more uses for Spoonflower's giftwrap as sales were a bit slow. As a mom, I knew that $15 plus shipping for a roll of paper needed to be super special, so, my plan was to introduce this paper as something that could be used for custom crafting. This is where the candy wrapper idea came to mind.
What if your kid could come to school with specially wrapped chocolate, versus those Valentine's cards? After some measurements and tests, I came up with the template for a basic bar of chocolate, and found an online free software where students could easily grab and personalize free graphics for personal use. This would prevent the need for me to create too many illustrations, and, dabble with Illustrator with students that perhaps did not have access to this.

OFFICE POSTERS & OTHER STUFF

DESIGN WITH MS PAINT

While working in the Customer Service department in Spoonflower, I realized more and more that a large amount of customers that would get in touch with us did not have design software or designed for a living. So, the idea of creating a few tutorials using free software and beginner's terms to help people realize their designs and meet their needs quickly.
It had been years since I used MS Paint, but I knew it was something that customers tried to use a lot. In Spoonflower we only had Apple products, so, woking from home for a day from a computer that my teenage daughter eventually stole from me to play The Sims {sigh}, I created this tutorial, which became a great tool for the department to use to help customers complete their projects.

DESIGN YOUR OWN DOLLS

This was, up to that date, the single most visited, shared, and engaged {all organically} Spoonflower tutorial. I really enjoyed working with kids, and teaching them design skills, this is where the idea of creating these stuffed dolls came from.
For this project, I used my sewing and pattern-making skills to create the sewing pattern of these dolls, I designed four doll versions, so that kids would have a lot to choose from.
Utilizing Spoonflower's website, kids could change the doll's hair, eye, skin, and clothing colors. Utilizing other free online tools for personal use, they were able to add details to the dolls like glasses, mustaches, tattoos, etc.

SPOONFLOWER GREENHOUSE PARTY BACKDROP

I designed The Greenhouse's holiday party photo backdrop. Since this was a holidy party, I wanted to add winter elements, but, because the community that attended was based on crafters, sewists, and similar interested folks, I decided that snowflakes that could double as doilies would be just what would do the trick.

HALLOWEEN TRICK OR TREAT BAGS

This tutorial was created to help Spoonflower promote their new fabric, Satin, at the time. It came out just in time for Halloween season so a custom trick or treat bag tutorial was a good option for this.
For this project I created a sewing pattern of a simple tote bag, and then added details to the artwork to make it look like a monster. The design included a Frankestein bag and a Bat bag.

SPOONFLOWER'S ETSY SHOP: SIGNFLOWER

At one point, Spoonflower wanted to test the waters with sign-making, they opened an etsy shop called "Sign Flower" and asked me to be the graphic designer for it as a side-gig.
For this project I created multiple designs as templates, so that the person handling the shop could easily use and personalize for customers.

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SPOONFLOWER'S HOLIDAY PARTY POSTERS & INVITES

I was asked to make the holiday party's invitations and posters to place around the office, the theme was "Gatsby" so I used golds, geometrics, and similar imagery to make these.
I also made a chalk mural for the party, and photo booth graphics that we used during the party.